primtastic

Fragmented

I'm a victim of 21st century schizophrenia. I'm interested in everything. I try to compartmentalize my ideas and thoughts into different blogs because everyone wants focus and specialization. But that's not really who I am. I get confused and unfocused. And fragmented. I want to fix that. To embrace who I am with all my diversity. To not be forced and led and guided by what "they" want, but by what I am.

2000-2010 > Fragmentation
2011-2020 > Synthesis

Chortle - Does It Really Have Evil Connotations?

Does the word "chortle" have evil connotations? I thought it meant to chuckle. Maybe a more aggressive chuckle than most - somewhere between a chuckle and a laugh, but not a guffaw. A gurgly sort of chuckle. Definitely some glee involved, but evil? I didn't think so.

This Made the English Major Chortle

Thank you xkcd.

Sunny Afternoon

Personal Learning Network

I love the idea of a personal learning network. I think it's what I've done for years without having a definition for it and without being very organized or aggressive about creating or maintaining it. To me it's a natural development but the online portion requires balancing with the real world. The idea though, the idea of combining the tools and locations and people that complement your interests and your life into a vast network with spidery fingers all over the place. To me that's heavenly. Although, I do believe I should focus on the center too, on what it is that's in the center, what keeps me grounded and able to balance all those tendrils that creep ever outward.

Harmonic Convergence

As I research for our trip to Egypt I come across articles about power centers and new age tours and the harmonic convergence of 1987. And looking back 23 years later I wonder if that harmonic convergence did affect us in a monumental way? 

Moving from a warlike civilization to a peaceful one? I can't say I think that has happened, although I do believe, in the 90s that people were more concerned with becoming in touch with a spiritual side in a way that wasn't present in the 80s. 

I remember my grandparents in the 1980s. Things seemed old-fashioned in their house at the time and particularly in my memory now. I remember watching sports shows on their over-sized color tv, reading long, laborious articles from the NY Times, listening to Grandma practice the piano. Their life was quiet and punctuated with small events, a dinner out, a visit with me, a play or concert, a trip to the supermarket, a drive along the shore.  

I think to myself that I am slowly becoming that generation. The one that is the most traditional, staid. While around me children and young people seem to burst forward chaotically, attacking life, living in a frenzy of tiny bits of experience.  That effect seems to be exaggerated in our super-technical world, where each person travels with electronics, technology is involved in every act, and all of life is complemented(?) enhanced(?) interrupted(?) by its presence.

Did I seem that way to my grandparents? Unable to focus? To slow down and breathe? Unaware of traditional things, unappreciative of the nuances of living? What happens as I become the representative of that generation? This must be how evolution works. Evolution from a single perspective.

Along the Thames

By the Tate Modern

I am a Corn Plant

Corny Pair

With scary little parasitic ears of corn. I'm the one on the right. Aion temporary avatar transformation.

Tuesday Things

Goodies:

• Looking at the date and realizing it's Tuesday, and I'm remembering to post here
• Big hot mug of coffee
• Birds twittering loudly
• Knowing I'll be in London in 3 days
• Reading books on the iPod Touch!
• Blue skies, cool temperatures and 20+ hours of daylight every day
• Passport external hard drive - 130 GB of teeny tiny portable goodness
• Fresh strawberries

Baddies:

• Big horse flies that come in the open balcony door and make a beeline (no pun intended) for me wherever I am
• The buzzing of the aforementioned flies

Identity Crisis

I'm finding that the longer I am online and the more social networking and blogging and education and gaming and all other online activities are part of my life, the more fractured I become at a time when it feels like things should all be melding together.

I start a new activity and think "Oh I should start a blog about this..." instead of incorporating it into my current existence. I am wishing for a single place that is just my place, where I can be just me. But then there are times when I want to reveal my identity and times when it would be wiser and better not to. So if all my social networking and email and blogging and photo sites are tied together, well then I'm just all out there for the world to see.

It's a conundrum, one I've dealt with on and off for about 5 years. I find it interesting that it doesn't seem to slowly resolve itself. And what I think one day can easily be completely different a few days later. It's confusing. 

How do you all handle this?